Smart meters rolling out in NSW to 'change the way we think about electricity'

Eighteen months ago Tina Lyons was paying up to $900 a quarter on electricity for her family home. When that figure hit $1100, she said enough was enough.

Now, she pays half that and manages her usage straight from her iPhone, all with the help of a smart meter. It's a technology soon to hit NSW, and one that experts say will completely change the way we think about electricity and power.

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Smart meters have not alway had the best reputation, thanks to a widely criticised mandatory mass roll-out in Victoria, which left consumers paying for a technology many did not understand nor want.

"Victoria was a complete disaster," said Stephen King, professor of economics at Monash University. "With any new technology you can take an engineering approach or a consumer-focused approach. Victoria took an engineering approach. There may have been cost savings in total, but by reducing consumer choice they introduced smart meters that weren't designed to meet consumer interest."

Smart meters provide data to allow customers to monitor how much energy they use, recording electricity usage every 30 minutes and sending it to a customer's distributor. They can also allow customers to choose when to receive and pay their bills.

Retailers in Victoria offer innovative tariffs to consumers in order to make use of the smart meter data, but Mr King said take-up of such products is low, "meaning most gains have been to the distributor" in the form of reduced meter reading costs.

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While the technology remains young "only consumers who want smart meters" should have them installed, he said.

Ms Lyons is one Victorian consumer who has taken up the technology and reaped the rewards.

AGL has launched an app which gives consumers a view of their energy production from their solar panels, electricity and gas consumption. Photo: AGL

"Immediately I saw reductions. It helped me understand what appliances were using the most amount of energy."

Powershop chief executive Ed McManus said smart meters provide the data and transparency needed to serve the "new energy consumer", an approach Powershop will bring to NSW when it rolls out smart meters in coming months.

"There is a school of thought there has not been much benefit for consumers [in Victoria], but that is because the majority of people have not been given data in a way that is user friendly, now we have lots of new, innovative players coming in," Mr McManus said.

Following the Victorian experience most retailers agreed that in NSW, a market-led meter roll-out would be more successful than a mandated roll-out.

Mr King said NSW would benefit from a large number of retailers "competing...to come up with the best deals and systems."

AGL began rolling out smart meters and a smartphone app in NSW, South Australia and Queensland at the start of the year, in a move to better enable "the home energy management ecosystem of the future".

A spokesperson for EnergyAustralia said consumer surveys had shown customers felt their ability to reduce bills increased when using a smart meter, adding that EnergyAustralia was looking at smart meters among other options to give "NSW customers greater control".

As more consumers take up the technology it is hoped more consumers will take advantage of demand management and programs that automatically regulate appliances when energy conservation or cost saving is required.

"It is completely changing the way we think about electricity and power, moving us to a world where we can decide when we want to buy and sell our power," Mr King said.